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Finding out if a new image promotion strategy is successful should be a matter of experimentation, not just asking customers what they like.

Customers are crucial, but they don’t always know how useful a service will be, or how it will work in practice. You probably don’t know either.

It might also be very difficult to get detailed information from customers who are too busy doing their jobs. And even then, are you able to do the full quantitative and qualitative studies that a marketing company or department would do at great expense?

For all these reasons, the best (and cheapest) way to test a sales promotion strategy, is to trial it. That’s not to say that anything goes. There are ways to avoid obvious mistakes, and insure there is at least some positivity around your idea.

When deciding on a new sales initiative – whether curating your image feeds, web site ads, sales alerts, social media, or something else – we recommend a three part process called AER.

Ask – Find out from a group of friendly customers, and your sales staff, whether they think the idea has merit. Don’t disregard the idea if it is met with some negativity though. What you should be looking for is outright hostility or heavy disinterest. If some people can see some merit, then it is probably worth a shot, and probably some refinement.

Experiment – Try out your idea in a limited way to get some hard data about its success, and cost. The appropriate limit could be timescale, market segment, or territories. If there’s success, expand from there.

Review – Set a specific date or dates that the success of the idea will be reviewed. Be sure to give it a reasonable time, and have a way of measuring the success with sales results, click-throughs, enquiries or something else which is quantifiable and relevant.

To find out how Core Celeb can help you promote image sales, click here.